The present invention relates to a motor vehicle column and a method for producing such a vehicle column.
The following discussion of related art is provided to assist the reader in understanding the advantages of the invention, and is not to be construed as an admission that this related art is prior art to this invention.
From the state of the art it is known to produce structural motor vehicle components from metallic materials, in particular from steel materials. For this purpose sheet metal blanks are provided that are processed by forming. However, stricter safety requirements imposed by law or demanded by manufacturers make it necessary that the components are not only cold formed from a sheet metal blank with homogenous wall thickness. In this regard different approaches exist for achieving a high stiffness at same or reduced weight.
For example the hot-forming and press-hardening technology is used in order to increase the stiffness and with this also the crash performance of a component, in particular a component having a homogenous wall thickness, while at the same time keeping the weight of the component constant.
An alternative approach is the use of reinforcement sheets and/or reinforcement patches which are welded to or glued into the component in order to again increase the stiffness and crash performance by way of a respective cross sectional configuration at constant or only slightly increased weight of the component.
Based on the state of the art it is an object of the present invention to present a possibility to significantly increase the stiffness and crash performance of a motor vehicle column without significantly increasing the component weight and at the same time enable very low manufacturing costs and a technically simple production.